JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia will quit the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries because as a net oil importer
it is not happy with high global crude prices, the energy
minister said on Wednesday.

The country, an OPEC member since 1962, has seen its
influence within the cartel wane as its production declines,
even as the producer group gains more global clout with the
admission of Angola and the rejoining of Ecuador last year.

On Saturday Jakarta was forced to make an unpopular fuel
price hike as it struggled to bear the cost of importing
gasoline and diesel at record high prices and selling it at
heavily subsidized prices, one legacy of being a major oil
producer for over a century and OPEC's only Asian member.

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"Actually there is also one rationale -- that we are not
happy with the high oil prices. Because we are an oil producer
and we are an oil consumer," energy minister Purnomo
Yusgiantoro said.

Global benchmark U.S. crude has risen by more than 30
percent this year to $127 a barrel, briefly rising above $135
last week.

But Indonesia's crude oil output has fallen in recent years
due to ageing wells, a lack of investment, and the absence of
any major oil finds.

Its status as a net importer means it would benefit from
lower oil prices, putting it at odds with other OPEC members,
who favor higher prices.

An OPEC spokeswoman declined to comment.

Earlier this month, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said
that Asia's only member of the cartel may quit the group,
citing the decline in crude oil output.

It was not clear when Indonesia would formally leave the
grouping, in which it has a paid up membership until the end of
the year.

"The membership will expire by the end of the year, but I
think soon...we are pulling out from OPEC," Purnomo told a
meeting of foreign journalists.

EXPANDING CARTEL

Kurtubi, an energy analyst at the Centre for Petroleum and
Energy Economics Studies in Jakarta, said Indonesia was
quitting the cartel because it was not satisfied with the
manner in which OPEC was dealing with high oil prices.

"It is not enough to blame speculators only on oil prices,
because if there is significant additional supply from OPEC,
oil prices will go down," Kurtubi said.

Indonesia's status as a net oil importer has prompted many
analysts to question its continued membership of OPEC,
especially at a time when the cartel has been expanding.

Angola, Africa's second largest producer, joined more than
a year ago and will add up to 2 million bpd to the cartel by
2009, while Ecuador added some 510,000 bpd when it rejoined
OPEC last November as the cartel's smallest producer.

Indonesia has aired the possibility of leaving OPEC before.
In 2005 a group of advisers to the government had recommended
the country leave the group partly because of the financial
costs of membership.

Purnomo said Indonesia needed the Middle East for future
oil supplies.

"From a political standpoint, we need the Middle East as an
oil supplier in future," Purnomo said.

Indonesia sees daily oil output of 927,000 barrels per day
this year, down from 950,000 bpd in 2007, and well short of
consumption of around 1.2-1.3 million barrels per day.

Indonesia raised fuel prices by an average of just under 30
percent on Saturday, as it struggles to plug the fiscal hole
left by soaring crude oil prices.

But fuel is still subsidized in the country where millions
of people live on less than two dollars a day, with the
government expected to spend billions of dollars keeping fuel
costs among the lowest in Asia.